The Sword Princess and the Argonaut
by theAnImelover8
Summary: A story which will try to focus on the development of the relationship between Bell and Ais. This story will be based around the time when Bell has only just met up with Lili and Welf, so I apologize if you think the interactions between Bell and Ais are too insignificant.


**EDIT:**

**Quick note about this chapter**

**This chapter is not finished, it is only a rough copy and I will keep rewriting it based on reviews until you are all satisfied with it. Due to this, it may take some time for chapter 2 to be released and I apologize for that. Expect heavy changes from now on to this chapter. I know this is based on Ais and Bell and that part will come later in this chapter but it will take some time to do due to the reasons aforementioned. Also, I only do this as a hobby so don't expect an update every day. Once a week is how often it will take for updates, but it really depends on how much free time I have so I might release an update to this chapter earlier or later. Only write reviews stating your opinion on the chapter, nothing else. Don't go writing reviews that are not even useful, like for example complaining to me because I'm not releasing updates soon enough. Well, if you have read this far already and are still complaining about updates then clearly you are mentally challenged. But anyway, please review this chapter because it really helps me try to tailor my writing style to fit your high expectations.**

**EDIT 2: Major update on this chapter, make sure to review it.**

**EDIT 3: Okay, okay, okay, yes I get it my story has quite a lot of issues and such, but that is due to the fact that I have not seen the anime for a long time now, and I currently don't have the time to re-watch the entire first season, and I have also never read any of the LNs or any of the manga so I'm basing all of this on my memory. Due to the reviews I have decided to replace the time writing so I can re-watch the first season for the sake of you guys so don't expect an update at the very least for a month. I'm sorry, but this is the only way I can think of at this moment to deal with the current situation, so go and read other fanfics for now.**

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The blazing sun shone brightly, as it started to rise up after its long slumber, awakened by the call of the modest rooster trying to relay a message of sunrise to the rest of its flock. It was a seemingly peaceful morning, as the streets of Orario were practically deserted, with only the odd couple of people every now and then, as the dungeon city was still fast asleep. Or so it had seemed from the surface. A voice could be heard echoing from inside the tower of Babel.

"You were great out there you know! With the knife, like you literally cut through them like the wind!" Welf exclaimed with a strong sense of enthusiasm and praise.

Welf, along with Bell and Lili had suddenly appeared from the entrance of Babel, the massive tower that acts as both a shop and a magic stone exchange on the upper floors, as well as the cover to the dungeon, a deep cave-like labyrinth located underground in the city of Orario. Eventually, more adventurers started to pour out of the tower of Babel like a flood of water, only slowly as many of the returning adventurers had an exhausted aura surrounding them, probably due to the long hours spent either exploring and excavating for hidden areas located around within the many, many floors of the dungeon, or the most common thing to do in the dungeon, slaying monsters and gaining magic stones.

"Huh, I mean I guess so, but you don't need to praise me so much, I mean its kind of embarrassing don't you think?" Bell replied back to Welf, ending with a light chuckle.

"Come on, you deserve it you know. I mean its not like someone like me could ever get to your level of skill or even level up as fast as you, like how long did it take you again? A month? I mean, that's even faster than the Sword Princess, and she's like one of the best adventurers that I know of."

"Well, if you insist."

"That's the spirit, now come on and lets go, we need to get our magic stones exchanged for valis over at the Guild's place before the queues to the exchange booths get too long."

"Yeah, I hope we will get a lot this time, I mean as you said, I did slay quite a lot of monsters down there."

"Well, what really matters is mainly the size of the magic stones, as one massive magic stone would be worth more than lots of little ones if you think about it." Lili explained to the both of them, in a tone that made her seem like a professional teacher.

"That seems about right." Bell replied back to her.

"Are we gonna get going or what? I mean we've been standing here just chatting around getting nothing done, so why not get something done? Like getting our magic stones exchanged? Besides the queues are probably really long already anyway." Welf blurted out, seemingly quite annoyed already.

"Okay, okay we can go now."

The three of them began to proceed through one of the many roads in the city, towards the Guild's main building, also known as the Pantheon, where adventurers can chat with their guild advisers or exchange their magic stones for valis. The streets, which were once vacant, are now filled with massive swathes of entranced customers, gazing at the many food, equipment and potion stalls that were scattered on pretty much every street, and every corner. It made it quite tricky to traverse around the city during the day, as the crowds usually wouldn't move at least an inch for many minutes, or even hours at a time.

"Ugh, the crowds sure are quite large today huh?" Welf asked the two of them, not directing the question to either one of them specifically.

"They are usually like this anyway, I mean it's the city of Orario, we've got people flocking from all over coming to this city due to its popularity. So I'm not that surprised that the crowds get this big anyway." Lili answered straight away.

"I have to agree with Lili on this one." Bell responded with as a follow-up to Lili's reply.

"Yeah yeah, let's keep going already." Welf said, already heading off into the distance.

Eventually, they managed to traverse the wild desert of crowds and they ended up at the entrance of the Pantheon.

"Finally, we're here!" Welf exclaimed with an obvious feeling of joy.

Bell entered the Pantheon first, lightly pushing open the two wooden doors that allowed entry into the building. Welf soon followed, while also holding the doors open for Lili, who was carrying the rucksack which was loaded with the varying sizes of the large quantity of magic stones they had managed to acquire during their dungeon adventure.

"Welf, you don't need to hold the doors open for me, I'm fine on my own." Lili told Welf, scowling at him.

"Woah, calm down there little missy, I'm just trying to help you." Welf replied in response.

"Can you not call me little please? And I have a name too you know, I'd prefer to be called by that instead." Lili told Welf, before kicking open the doors before her and walking inside.

"Sheesh, she definitely has anger issues." Welf told quietly to himself, before also entering the Pantheon.

Inside was a large, spacious room, filled with lights hanging near the ceiling, all of which, were powered by magic stones. The magic stones collected by adventurers in the dungeon had many purposes, as they could power anything electrical and can even be used to purify water, but adventurers mainly collected them in order to sell them for valis, as valis is the currency used to buy pretty much anything in the city of Orario.

"Drop the stones here, please." The teller at the exchange booth told the group in a quite monotone voice.

"Lili, can you get them out of your bag please?" Bell said to Lili.

"Alright, I got them, here."

Lili began to empty out the fairly sized satchel that she had stored them in into the tray, until there were none left.

"Is that all?"

"Yes."

The teller then began to pull in the tray to the other side of the booth, and eventually pushing it back out to their side, revealing quite a large amount of valis, for them at least.

"Now that's a lot of money, lets go spend some of it now!" Welf told the others.

"Mmm, I wonder what kind of potions I can buy with this amount..." Lili said to herself, with a sly smile.

"Wait guys, we need to split it evenly between the three of us, it wouldn't be fair if-..."

But they were already gone.

"Well, looks like I got nothing out of that long time spent in the dungeon." Bell thought to himself, as he knew those two wouldn't even think twice about spending the valis earned for their own personal uses. "Looks like I'll have to go back home empty handed..."

Bell began to walk on the route to his home, which was an old and abandoned church. The Hestia Familia was a quite recent Familia, compared to the others, which also meant that it was a poor one. But, on his way home he spotted the Hostess of Fertility, a pub where many high-level (and low-level) adventurers went to take a break and have a rest from the exhausting dungeon life.

"Maybe I should go there? I mean, I do have a little amount of valis on me right now."

Bell was in deep thought when a sudden collision caused him to be pushed over and made him plummet with a large force onto the rock-solid ground paving.

"What was that?"

Bell started to slowly get up, but then he received a sudden jolt of pain throughout his body.

"Agh, my body did hit the ground hard though."

He looked around to see if anyone was nearby. In the distance, he saw a figure running off. It was a girl, he could tell by the slender figure, and she had long blonde hair. She looked back at the boy, before eventually fading from his view.

"Was that who I thought it was?" Bell questioned to himself, before blacking out.

Bell woke up to a familiar voice, a voice he had known ever since he had joined her Familia. It was Hestia's voice.

"BELL! BELL! WAKE UP! PLEASE!" Hestia's voice pleaded with desperation.

He slowly began to open his eyes, eventually revealing the tearful face of his goddess.

"BELL! YOU'RE ALIVE!" Hestia screamed, before jumping onto Bell and hugging him from the neck.

"Wha-.. what happened?"

"I don't know, you tell me. Someone told me that they had found you on the street unconscious, and I came rushing in as fast as I could."

"But I thought I was with Welf and Lili?"

"Well that's what you told me this morning, you were going to go with the dungeon with them and come back with the valis. Besides, where are they anyway?"

"From what I can remember I think they went to buy equipment and items at the street stalls near Babel."

"And what about you? Where's your share of the valis?"

"About that... they ran off before I could even tell them about it.."

"Those greedy snakes! I'm going to punish them as soon as they get back here."

"Goddess please don't, I know they did something wrong but I don't mind, I mean friends are meant to forgive each other, so why not let them off this once?"

"I guess I could consider it... but I'm going to be confiscating a part of the valis they earn for the Familia fund for this week, I'm not going to let them off completely."

"That's good enough for me!"

Bell and Hestia continued to chat on for some time since then, about topics relating to the dungeon and such. Eventually they decided to get some rest, as they both had been out for the entire day, with Bell in the dungeon and Hestia selling potato croquettes, and it was already late at night so it made sense.

"Goodnight Bell!" Hestia said, before letting out a big yawn.

"Goodnight goddess."

Hestia was already in a deep sleep, as indicated by her loud snoring.

"She must have had a long day at work." Bell thought to himself, smiling.

But there was one thing that he couldn't get out of his mind. He remembered one thing before falling unconscious. He remembered seeing a blonde haired girl, a girl that he recognized, but he couldn't exactly pinpoint who it was.

"Maybe I'm just tired, I'll just get some sleep for now."


End file.
